SHIBBOLETH: Thoughts on life and faith

Being devoted to… prayer (Acts 2:42 Series)

Prayer is fairly easy to define and even easier to do. Prayer is talking to God! We spend plenty of time talking to people, so we should be fairly good at it, as no special training is required. Knowing details about people or reading their CV, whilst giving you some useful information, doesn’t really help you to get to know the person. So, it is the same with God and knowing details about Him doesn’t really suffice. Just as you get to know people by talking to them, so you get to know God by talking to Him. The problem is though, God isn’t like other people. He doesn’t just turn up and expect a conversation. He isn’t waiting at work, He won’t call you on the phone, He won’t interrupt what you’re doing in order to make you talk to Him. God has taken the initiative in making it possible for us to talk to Him, and He speaks to us whenever we read the Scriptures and believe me he wants us to speak to Him. But we actually have to do something about it. We have to start talking to God; He who is always with us.

Now we all find prayer difficult! It doesn’t matter who you are or how long you’ve been a Christian, prayer simply doesn’t come easily to any of us; which is perhaps why the Scriptures tell us to pray and, as in Acts 2:42, call on us to be devoted to prayer. Prayer may happen around us, that is if we attend church on a Sunday, if we attend the prayer meeting each month and the bible studies each week, we will be surrounded by prayer and may even find ourselves praying. However, this isn’t being devoted to prayer, this isn’t what God is calling us to. This kind of prayer is like only chatting to your partner twice a week and wondering why your relationship isn’t going too well. In fact, thinking of God like a marriage partner, or close friend, is a good way of working out how often you should pray, that is communicate to Him. To build and maintain a relationship takes time, commitment and dedication. It means speaking every day and speaking on a deeper level than just saying ‘please can you do this for me’. Being devoted to prayer means, being devoted to God, to your relationship with God and this is going to take some effort and some work, but believe me, the effort is more than worth it.

So let’s be praying, each and everyday. Let’s set aside some time during the day just to speak to God and then on top of that speak to Him throughout the day. Not just at mealtimes, but when we meet a friend asking him to help you encourage one another, or when we go shopping ask that he would help us to make wise decisions as to what to buy or what not to buy. When we arrive at work why not pray that God would be with you throughout the day, thank Him in prayer when things go right and asking Him to be with you at difficult moments. This is what we mean by being devoted to prayer, so let’s encourage one another to start working towards this even this week.

Related

Mike…this post is a great reminder to keep focused on God and make a displine daily out of devotional prayer. To be devoted to coming before God continually. I have found much inspiration from the writings of Brother Lawrence, particularly his book, The Practice of the Presence of God, where he relates how eventually his times for prayer differed very little from his ordinary moments of life for each moment was an expression of prayer lifted up towards God. I haven’t used this in awhile, but what helped me make a regular habit of prayer was a book called The Divine Hours. It gives liturgical prayer and bible verses as well as hymns for each part of the day.

I’m currently reading:

"[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone."— John Stott